


Stop Me If You've Heard This One

by LandOfMistAndSecrets



Category: Octopath Traveler (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Blow Jobs, Feelings Jams, Jealousy, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Smut, Some light angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 10:29:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15772293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LandOfMistAndSecrets/pseuds/LandOfMistAndSecrets
Summary: Communicating is hard, don't we know it.(Contains spoilers for a late game sidequest.)





	Stop Me If You've Heard This One

Fireflies danced on the riverbank, motes of light between the reeds. A light breeze ushered out the heat of the day while the sun edged nearer to the horizon, painting the tiny town in streaks of red and orange. Though it wasn't the light Therion was interested in. Instead, and perhaps predictably, he was seated squarely in a clean cut of shadow sourced from the cobbled bridge above. His arms were crossed, and he sat with his back against a stone column, listening to the town above. 

Heavy footfalls and creaking wheels rumbling over the uneven road. Shouted greetings and farewells, and the occasional snatch of laughter, too. Barking dogs, minced backwoods oaths -- Alfynisms, really -- and the occasional slamming door. The gentle sound of river water rippling its way ever toward the sea. Even these tiny river towns had plenty going on, if you paid attention. 

The problem was, he didn't want to pay attention. He hadn't wanted to stop here at all. No matter how much they all claimed to be wanderers, comfortable on the road, free and willing to go wherever fate lead them, each of them had some special place. Somewhere they thought of as _home._ He thought of the way the tension always seemed to go out of Cyrus the moment the ostentatious gates of Atlasdam appeared in the distance, or the way Prim tried so hard to wipe the wistful look off her face while they crept like outsiders through the busy streets of Noblecourt. How Tressa had laughed and pulled them all into her parents' quaint little shop and whispered _behave yourself_ at him like a warning, because that was her place, those were her people, and Rippletide meant something to her that Therion could in no way relate to. 

He thought of the way Alfyn's steps quickened and his face brightened, the way he wondered aloud how old patients of his were faring, what old friends of his were up to, the way he was so obviously eager to be _home,_ however brief the stop. 

Well, no wonder. Maybe if Therion's upbringing had involved more kind-faced bumpkins and idyllic rivers and dancing fireflies, he'd have fond feelings for where he'd come from, too. 

He snorted, disgusted with the melancholy of his own inner monologue, and glared ahead at absolutely nothing. He wasn't jealous. It was just a waste of time. 

"Therion," a voice cut -- blessedly -- through his thoughts. He lifted his chin, and there was Prim, hanging upside-down half over the side of the bridge. Her hair hung down in loops and curls, and she waved awkwardly at him, somehow managing her trademark smirk with all the usual aplomb. Therion's arm was halfway up before he realized what he was doing, hastily tucked it back across his chest, and nodded acknowledgement in her general direction. 

Alfyn would have waved back. Enthusiastically, like an idiot. It was infectious. 

"Still brooding, I see," Prim said, and before Therion could so much as deny it, she lifted herself upright on the bridge and disappeared from view. 

He shouted back up at her, anyway. Just because he couldn't see her didn't mean she couldn't hear him. "I am _not_ brooding," he informed her. "Can't a guy just prefer to be alone for a little while without everyone deciding something has to be wrong, huh?" 

"You have _never_ preferred to be alone," Prim answered, and he twisted his head toward the sound of her voice and found her climbing gingerly but quickly down the rocky slope toward him. His mouth twisted. 

"Oh -- please. What do you know," he said, but it came out sulky, even to his own ears. Petulant, even. Prim completed her descent, landing lightly in the sand, and grinned at him. 

"Oh, Therion," she said. "I know _so_ many things." She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, like they were confidantes planning some mischief together. Fondness and a sick sort of nostalgia went to war in his gut, but if his expression changed, she was kind enough not to mention it. "I know, for instance, that _most_ of us were having an absolutely grand old time dicing likes miscreants at the tavern --" 

"-- You say that like you're somehow not a miscreant --" 

"-- When someone thought to ask, now, why the hell isn't Therion here, cheating us out of our pride and money as per usual?" 

"Cheating, right. Sounds like the tiresome grousing of the terminally unlucky, to me." 

"And so we got to theorizing," she went on, blithely, as though he hadn't spoken at all. "Some few wagers may have been made..." 

"Nice." 

"I thought you'd like that." She settled in beside him, shoving him pointedly over with one shoulder. He grunted, but he moved to give her space. The pillar was just barely wide enough for them both to sit against it, side by side. She stretched her legs and kicked her shoes off, digging her toes into the sand. "Tress and Olberic are convinced you're off breaking and entering somewhere." 

"To be fair, that does sound like me." 

Prim nodded. "They're convinced they're going to be splitting the winnings." 

"All right, well, let's hear the rest of theories, come on." He sighed. "I know you're dying to tell me." 

She nudged him with her shoulder again, admonishing. He elbowed her -- lightly -- in the ribs. She kicked sand at him, and he couldn't stop a stupid resigned chuckle from climbing its way up his throat and out into the air between them. She was kind enough not to mention that, too. That's what he liked about her. Always so circumspect. 

"Ophilia wagered that you'd gone to bed early." 

"Wow." 

"Of course, for all her relentless optimism, she only wagered a single leaf. So I suppose her opinion of you hasn't... _quite_ reached its peak." 

"How do you know? Maybe a single improbably optimistic leaf is exactly as much hope as I deserve." 

"Oh, stop." 

"Only if you keep going." 

Prim arched a brow at him. He tilted his head expectantly. "Cyrus -- and this is my favorite -- thinks that you're off tailing Alfyn around town, spying at him through windows and the like." 

"Albright can go fuck himself," Therion replied with an offhand wave. He refused to examine the warm feeling that came with Prim's answering laugh. "Next?" 

"H'aanit thinkest thou hast had enough of japery at thy expense," Prim recounted, eyes crinkling at the corners, and Therion coughed discreetly into his own crooked elbow to keep from laughing. "Which was close enough to my guess that we agreed to split the proceeds, too." 

"Let me guess. _Your_ guess was that I was off moping, somewhere." 

"Aren't you?" 

"No!" 

"Then what do you call this, Therion? Enlighten me." 

"Recuperating from the constant agony that is exposure to all the rest of you," he decided. 

"Sounds like a lot of fancy words that ultimately mean much the same as moping, to me." 

"You just want to win the wager." 

"Wouldn't you?" 

He shrugged. "Fair enough." 

To that, she nodded once, and then said nothing at all. They elected instead to sit in silence for awhile, until the sun completed its descent and the orange-red of its departure faded to blue and black. Lights flickered on throughout the town, none of which reached the dark beneath the bridge half so well as the silver moon's reflection off the water. The fireflies seemed to triple in number, and Prim let out a happy little sigh beside him, tucked against him like they were something more than friends. Not that they were friends. 

...Maybe they were friends. 

"To be honest, as much as I do love winning wagers, I wanted _Cyrus_ to be right." 

"Really." 

"Mm." 

"You'd rather I was off spying on him like some jealous freak." 

"Frankly, yes." 

"Just between you and me, that seems a little strange, Prim." 

"No, hear me out. If you were off tailing him, see, there's a chance you'd be discovered." 

Therion turned his head and pinned her with an incredulous glare. "What?" 

"And then, given that there is no reasonable explanation for you skulking after him that way, you would presumably have to talk..." 

"No, hold on, back up. You think there's a chance -- even a one percent chance -- that Alfyn would catch me tailing his oblivious ass?" 

Prim kicked more sand at him, laughing. "Gods, but that _ego_ ," she teased. "Awful quality in a man."

He settled back against the stone column, grumbling. Nope. Definitely not friends. Not even a little. 

"And, well -- Alfyn's obliviousness _aside_ , my point still stands." 

"And that _point_ isn't so much that you wanted Cyrus to be right, it's just that you wanted me to get in trouble." 

"I wanted you to _talk_ , damn you." 

"I'm not going to go creeping on his happy home reunion tour, okay? Besides, it's probably hellishly boring, anyhow. A bunch of inside jokes I don't get and Alf going on and on about his elixirs while his company suffers in polite silence." 

"Except, of course, for the one person in town for which elixirs are a subject of mutual interest," Prim said, and there it was. Therion clenched his jaw and said nothing. "Really?" Prim nudged him, after a minute or so of this. "Nothing to say?" 

"That isn't a problem," he ground out. "Not anymore." 

Prim quirked an eyebrow at him. "Ominous," she said. 

"Don't worry about it." 

"Somehow, even _more_ ominous." 

"It's nothing -- look, I said don't worry about it, so don't. I'm certainly not. Like I said, I was just taking a break. Enjoying a little peace and quiet. If you want to call that moping, fine, see if I care. You and H'aanit enjoy your winnings. Buy yourselves something nice." 

"Oh, Therion. Don't be like that," Prim said, and something in her tone actually managed to prick him with something almost like guilt. He swallowed the rest of the rant on the tip of his tongue, scowling. She sat up and gave his shoulder a little pat. Like they were friends. 

They were probably friends. 

"I'll leave a light on for you," she said, climbing to her feet. 

His heart did a funny little flip, the way it always did when Prim or Tress or even Albright, sometimes -- _whoever_ \-- treated him like... 

"And talk to Alfyn," she added, and the fondness tightening his chest gave way to a much more comfortable and familiar wave of irritation. She grinned at him, presumably at the look on his face, and then spun and started back up the slope. Therion watched her go, half because there were few people in all Osterra who wouldn't watch Prim's ass while she climbed a slope in front of them, and half because he was vaguely worried she'd slip in the dark and break her damn neck. 

Friends were such a pain the ass. 

And that went double -- triple -- for whatever the hell he and Alfyn were. 

He waited until Prim disappeared safely back up onto the road, and then he stood, wiping the dust and sand off his clothes as best he could. He popped each of the joints in his fingers one by one, thinking. There was nothing to talk about. Alfyn and Zeph were old friends and nothing more. So what if Alf had let on once or twice or however many damned times about how Zeph had been his first _real_ crush, drunk and grinning stupidly at him across a dirty tavern table. So what if he'd bring the guy up at the strangest times, seemingly out of nowhere, talking almost reverently with a transparently smitten look on his face. So what if he kept all the letters he got from him safe and folded up in a hidden seam in his satchel, like precious treasures. 

So what. 

It wasn't mutual. 

Wasn't that what mattered? 

Or was Alfyn always secretly wishing, somewhere in the back of that thick head of his, that Therion could be more like Zeph? Zeph, with his mutual enthusiasm for the art of the apothecary. Zeph, with his soft features and kind voice and guileless eyes, Zeph with his gift for words and his willingness to commit those words to paper, Zeph this and Zeph that, gods damned _Zeph._

He finished popping his fingers and shook them out, flexing them in the dark. Nervous habit. Pathetic. Then he started on his wrists. 

He was stretching with one arm bent behind his head, popping some of the tension out of his shoulder, when a new and equally familiar shadow fell over him, cutting through the moonlight. He dropped his arm and looked up. 

"Heya," Alfyn greeted him from atop the bridge, hunching down to rest his elbows on the stone. "A little birdie told me I might find you down there." 

"A little birdie named Prim," Therion replied, voice carefully neutral. Alfyn chuckled, and Therion swallowed down the ridiculous bubble of fondness that rose through him at the sound. 

"Good thing, too, because I have to tell you, Therion, it was a surprise to get back and find you gone. And before you get smart with me, no, not the nice kind!" 

"Well, I've already heard what everyone else figured I was up to. Might as well hear your theory, too." 

"Oh, you know." He made a dismissive gesture, and now it was _him_ keeping his voice all carefully neutral. Suspicious. "A guy worries sometimes, you know, a shifty character like you. You might slip off into the night sometime and never come back." 

Oof. Why the hell did hearing that feel like such a solid punch to the gut? 

"Fair point," he said. "Sounds like something I'd do. Something I should be doing, really." If it came out a little high, a little strained, Alfyn probably couldn't tell. Right. "In a parallel universe, a wiser, better Therion is halfway back to Bolderfall, by now." 

"Uh huh. Sure! And a cranky, inconvenienced Alfyn is about an hour or so behind." 

"Yeah. Right." 

"With six other cranky and inconvenienced people in tow!" 

"That's a little presumptuous of you, don't you think? Most of them would probably be more than happy to see my back." 

"Gosh," Alfyn sighed, cradling his chin in his hands. His hair was sticking up in every direction, like he hadn't bothered to so much as run a brush through it, and he was smiling in this faraway sort of fashion that made Therion's chest hurt, again. "Prim said it was bad, but I gotta admit, I deeply underestimated this one. You haven't been this bad in ages." 

"Oh, whatever." A pause. He looked down, like the sand at his feet was the most interesting shit in the world. "Go to bed. And tell Prim I said to mind her own damn business, for once." 

"And, what, leave you to sleep under a bridge like a troll? Are you going to start charging people a toll to cross? That's kinda brutish of you, Therion, more highwayman than proper thief, if I'm being honest..." 

"Very funny." 

"I know! Hey, if you're not coming up, then I've really got no choice, have I? Guess I'm going down there." 

"Wait, now, hold on --" 

But he was already off, striding with purpose. Therion held his breath while Alfyn hopped off the grass and onto the rocks, scaling down the steep slope in the dark. He wasn't as graceful as Prim, but hey, who was? 

Alfyn landed in the sand with a grunt, and Therion exhaled, slowly, studying him. 

"I was going to come up," he lied. 

"Liar," Alfyn said. 

Well. Fair enough. 

"Now tell me, what the hell's gotten into you?" 

He took a step back, shaking his head. "Nothing? You would think you might have noticed at some point, but this is just how I am." 

"You've been strange since the moment we started off in this general direction. Thought I was imagining it at first, to tell the truth, but I wasn't, was I? So what is it? What's a harmless little rivertown done to make you swear off even the _tavern?_ I mean, yikes." 

"Nothing!" 

Alfyn put his hands on his hips, eyebrows raised in silent but clearly continued inquiry. Therion made a nebulous _everything_ sort of gesture, indicating the entire town around them, and made an exasperated sound. "I don't know! This isn't about me! This is _your_ place, these are your people, I don't have anything to do with it, and that's just fine by me." Alfyn tilted his head at him. Therion sucked in a breath, pretending not to notice. "I don't _want_ anything to do with it! I don't have that sort of nostalgia you do, all right?" Alfyn's arms dropped and he stepped forward, and Therion stepped back, talking faster. "I don't have any wholesome childhood memories or people from my past to catch up with. And before you say anything, no! I'm not jealous, or angry, or sad, or whatever other words for feelings Prim probably put in your damn head. I _like_ it that way. But it makes it a little hard to relate to you while we're here, so --" 

His back hit the stone pillar, and Alfyn put his hands on his shoulders, and Therion looked up at him and flat out forgot the rest of whatever stupid shit he'd been about to babble on with. He snapped his mouth closed, petulantly pushing Alfyn away. 

It was like trying to shove the moon out of its orbit. Alfyn just smiled at him in that infuriating way he had and caught his wrists, running his thumbs over the back of his hands and tangling their fingers together. Therion made a defeated little sound, half embarrassing wistful sigh and half resigned, frustrated groan.

"Heard some interesting stories, tonight," he said, like Therion hadn't just finished a breathless, transparent ode to his own worst qualities. 

"Did you, really." Therion tried to pull his hands free. Alfyn pulled him closer, instead. He stumbled forward, and Alfyn let one of his hands go to throw an arm over his shoulder, instead. He leaned down to whisper in his ear, like they were conspiring something sinister. 

"Heard a funny little story from Zeph, in particular," he said. Therion's stomach sank. 

"Right, funny. I'm sure it's just hilarious," he said. He hated how breathless he sounded. 

"More funny in the mysterious sense, actually. Y'see, he's been sweet on someone for years -- I've told you this story, right?" 

"Once or twice," Therion gritted out. 

"Well, I thought he'd given up on old Mercedes, on account of the fact that she shipped off across the damn sea and all. All the way to Atlasdam... but you know, after all this time on the road, that doesn't seem so far to me, anymore." 

"Does this have a point?" 

A pointless question, really. Therion knew exactly where this was going. Alfyn humored him anyway. 

"Turns out he'd been pining after her all this time. Since the day she left. He wrote her letters, but he could never bring himself to send them." 

"Sounds pretty cowardly, to me." 

Gods, he wanted to punch himself. Alfyn just dropped his other hand and squeezed the arm around his shoulders, pulling him close. "Cowardly or no, that's not the point. See, now, here's where the mystery comes in." 

"Oh boy." 

"Zeph never sent any of his letters... but somehow, Mercedes got ahold of one all the same." 

"What a scandal." 

"Uh huh." 

Therion shifted uncomfortably. "The work of some divine romantic, no doubt." 

"Oh, no doubt." 

"The very spirit of Sealticge herself." 

"If you say so, Therion." 

"I do." 

"Needless to say, she was more than moved by his words..." 

"See? Divine providence." 

"Imagine how shocked Zeph was to receive a letter in response to one he never sent!" 

"Forgive me if I don't feel too badly for him." 

"Mercedes comes all this way on the regular, now. They're courting, official and everything. She's got that fancy post at the University, and Zeph doesn't especially want to leave Clearbrook without its apothecary -- and there's Nina to think about -- but they're optimistic. Love finds a way, and all that, right, Therion?" 

"I mean -- Sure, if you say so. What the hell would I know about it?" 

Alfyn laughed at this, a cheerful, knowing chuckle that made Therion's traitorous stomach do cartwheels inside him. He swallowed, hard. "Now, there's a good question," Alfyn murmured, and then he had his hands back on Therion's shoulders and was pushing him back against the stone pillar, hard enough to knock him a little breathless. "What _would_ you know about it? Any of it, really. Ain't like some petty jealous thief would go rifling through a guy's private things, find a compromising letter, and then set about playing matchmaker, or anything." 

"Obviously not," Therion managed, looking up at him, trying and failing to gauge any of Alfyn's actual feelings about all of it. "That would be crazy." 

"And it's not like you'd ever fall in love, yourself," Alfyn continued, voice even and reasonable. While Therion gaped up at him, scrambling for an answer, a long sad and lonely future unfurled itself like a ribbon of prophecy in his mind. This was it, probably. This was the moment he fucked this up good and proper, finally, and let them both move on with their separate lives. This was the moment he'd been holding his breath and waiting for since the first time they'd leaned over a sticky table and brushed their lips together like nervous virgins, drunk and daring and desperate to follow through on awful ideas.

But if that were true, what the hell had it all been for? 

"Fine. Fine! Look, you're right. It was me. I sent the damn letter. I -- uh --" 

Whatever he'd been about to say next dissolved into a shocked exhalation, first against Alfyn's lips, and then deeper into the heat of his mouth. His brain locked up -- had they ever done this sober? -- and it took him a full several seconds to realize he was just standing there with his lips slightly parted like the world's most clueless idiot. This was probably exactly the way Cyrus kissed. Did he want to kiss like Cyrus godsdamned Albright?

"Now, just what is so funny?!" Alfyn demanded, pulling back and searching his face, looking less annoyed and more genuinely curious, and -- and. 

And, no, he did not want to be Cyrus, not in any regard, but especially not when it came to _kissing._

"Nothing," he said, and then he stepped forward, slid his arms over Alfyn's shoulders, and kissed him long and deep and _proper._ Alfyn seemed pleased by this, judging by how his lips parted easily and he reciprocated enthusiastically, bringing his callused hands up to cradle either side of Therion's face, which was suddenly roughly a billion degrees too warm. Alfyn's thumbs brushed over his cheeks, his fingers slid up into his hair, and Therion groaned softly into his mouth. Humiliating. _Ridiculous._ He was leaking feelings everywhere like a godsdamned sieve. Alfyn stepped forward, pushing Therion back against the pillar, and turned his head to one side, breathing hard. 

"It doesn't have to be love," he said, voice thick, talking fast. "I mean, it doesn't have to not be, but it doesn't have to be, yet, I don't know why I said that. I think I just wanted a damn reaction!" 

"Well," Therion said, embarrassed to find he was breathing hard, too. "Guess you got one." 

"Guess I did." He leaned in, kissing him again, short and fast before turning away, again. He licked his lips. "For the record, you never had to worry about Zeph in the first place." 

Therion felt, honestly, that his face might actually catch fire. What a way to go. "I didn't say it was rational," he said. 

"No, but, you know -- Thanks for helping him out, anyhow." 

"Holy shit." He laughed, dropping his forehead down to rest against Alfyn's shoulder. "Are you serious? Spare me, Alf, it wasn't rational and it for damn sure was not _selfless._ " 

Alfyn's fingers threaded back through his hair, and he brought his lips down to murmur in his ear. "I mean, you could have just bought me flowers. Or, I guess, stole them from some poor, beleaguered florist, somewhere --" 

Therion lifted his head and kissed him again, to shut him up, if nothing else. It worked like a charm. It was so easy not to think, especially as the kissing grew less cautious and more demanding. Alfyn's fingers slid out of his hair and worked their way under his shirt and up his back, tracing over a few forgotten scars and along the column of his spine. Truth be told, Therion had never been with anyone so damned gentle. 

He pulled back. Alfyn stilled against him, a question plain in his expression. Overhead, the town was still and quiet, and in his head, his heartbeat echoed loudly in his ears. 

"Someone is going to hear," he said. 

"And?" Alfyn's eyebrows shot up. His eyes were bright in the moonlight, and his smile -- no, his _grin_ was downright devilish. As though to emphasize the point, he pressed one leg up between them, humming a little pleased sound at what he found there.

"Are you _sure_ you haven't been drinking?" Therion admonished him, but he rolled his hips against the newfound friction of Alfyn's thigh pressed so insistently against him, heart slamming in his chest. There was some appeal, he thought, in the way Alfyn didn't seem the least bit ashamed about this, any of this, the kissing, the touching, the thoroughly compromising lump in his pants. 

"Not this time," Alfyn assured him. Then he leaned in and pressed a wet kiss down the side of his neck, which sent Therion's thoughts well and truly scattering. "I want to remember all of this, this time, if you don't mind." This he said in a murmur into his shoulder, while his hands worked on pulling up the hem of Therion's shirt. 

All right. 

Therion ducked away, dancing between Alfyn's arms and out of his grasp, but before he could catch him again or even speak a word of protest he lifted his shirt smoothly off overhead, tossing it further up the riverbank. Alfyn sucked in an appreciative breath. At least, Therion assumed it was appreciative. "Get over here," he hissed, backing further into the shadow of the bridge. "Before I come to my damn senses and call this whole thing off." 

"Don't you dare," Alfyn breathed, following him under. "I have to tell you I never meant to let this go so long. I'd tell myself, alright, maybe a drink or two to steel the nerves, but..." 

"Holy shit, Alf, shut up." Therion balled his fist in his shirt and yanked him forward. "And take this off, will you?" 

"Right. Gotcha. Yes, sir," Alfyn winked at him, actually winked, and Therion felt his face bloom with new ridiculous heat while his eyes roamed over the new and improved view. At least until Alfyn stepped up and slid his arms back around him and they were kissing, again. Pressed tight together, skin to skin, with Alfyn's fingers cautiously tracing the lines of old scars over his shoulders, down his back -- he didn't stand a chance. He rolled his hips, fingers deftly working Alfyn's belt open between them. All the embarrassment and awkwardness and unspoken messy _feelings_ nonsense seemed entirely unimportant when compared to how badly he wanted to feel the weight of him in his hand, to watch Alfyn's face contort with pleasure while he stroked him mercilessly, to press their lengths together and link their fingers and work the both of them simultaneously until they spilled together, hips stuttering, muffling their pleasure into their open palms. 

And he was close, so very close, gasping and moving against him and whispering his name, when Alfyn pulled his hands away with a choked little desperate sound. Therion's chin snapped up, the sudden lack of friction tantamount to torture.

" _Alfyn_ ," he hissed, stilling his own fingers at their work. Alfyn looked at him, eyes bright, and then -- gods be fucking good -- he dropped to his knees in the sand. "Oh, shit," Therion heard himself moan, and Alfyn's answering laugh was like a conduit to the heat in his middle. 

"You don't mind--?" Alfyn looked up at him, brows raised, and so by way of answer Therion grabbed a generous fistful of his hair and pulled. Alfyn hummed a pleased little sound, shuffling forward on his knees. "I didn't think so," he said, voice rough, and then he leaned in and licked a generous stripe up the length of his cock, base to tip, and Therion's knees came very near to buckling. Instead, he staggered back and steadied himself with one hand on the stone behind him, the other locked fast in Alfyn's ridiculous blonde tangles. "More?" Alfyn asked, blinking innocently up at him, and Therion practically growled in response. 

"More," he gasped. "Please." 

"Ah, so polite," Alfyn teased him, and then he leaned in to tease him in another way entirely. He ran his tongue around the tip of him in lavish, swirling circles, eyes closed, brows furrowed with concentration. Therion saw his hands move, heard the way he saw to his own pleasure with his dextrous fingers while he worked Therion over with his lips and tongue.

Therion let a long low moan escape him, followed by a frenzied litany of nonsense -- "Yes, Alfyn, gods, please, yes, oh, _shit_ , Alf, yes, _yes_ " -- while Alfyn slid his lips further down his length, taking in all he could. 

He tried to gasp a warning, but whether Alfyn heard or understood it or not was hard to say, because he didn't so much as hesitate in his ministrations. He let up only when Therion was spent and shivering, begging him to stop, it was too much, too much. 

And his _grin_ \-- Gods. 

"Proud of yourself, are you?" Therion said, breathless, practically wheezing, leaning heavily against the wall. Alfyn wiped his mouth once with the back of his hand, shook his head and stood, and Therion was pleased to see at least that he was more than a little unsteady on his feet.

"Think I have some reason to be, don't you?" He fluttered his eyelashes, and it was facetious, surely, but Therion's cheeks went somehow warmer all the same. 

"Maybe," he relented, but the quiver in his voice betrayed him. 

"Therion," Alfyn said, and the teasing was gone, now, entirely evaporated. "Okay. Listen. We're going to get cleaned up, here, and then I'm taking you right back to my place, and... and! Whatever anyone wants to think or say or do about it in the morning, they can just be my guest. I don't know about you, but it ain't likely to change my feelings any." 

"Which are?" 

Alfyn blinked once, twice, and then broke into a grin so open and honest and damned sincere, it was like staring at the sun. He couldn't look for long before he had to drop his eyes, face flushing. "...Positive? Overall?" 

Therion laughed into his palms, shaking his head helplessly.

"Okay," he agreed. "That's -- good, I can work with that. Good start." 

"Now, are you going to run off screaming if I kiss you, again?" Alfyn said this while simultaneously tucking himself back into his pants, a situation which struck Therion as both absurd and hilarious. Alfyn. Him and Alfyn, sober and somewhat official and everything. Wonder of wonders. Prim was going to lose her godsdamned mind.

"Only one way to find out," he said, and with only the slightest hesitation, he held out his arms. 

His mouth kept wanting to curve into a stupid smile of its own accord. Strange. 

But good. Maybe even positive, overall.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr: [@sealticge](http://sealticge.tumblr.com)


End file.
